Banned Samsung Galaxy Nexus 'coming soon' to Google Play

Last week, we heard that Apple had scored a preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, ultimately meaning it’d disappear from shelves across the Atlantic.

Well, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is no longer for sale on Google Play’s US site, but is currently listed – somewhat bizarrely – as “coming soon”.

As I was saying last week, Apple’s beef with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus centered around its slide to unlock mechanism, and some sort of “patent for unified search” that stepped on Siri’s toes.

Point #1: who in their right mind would base their decision to buy a Samsung Galaxy Nexus on either of those things? “Ooh, I really like that slide to unlock. Sold!”

Point #2: is it just me, or is this whole fiasco ultimately yielding oodles of publicity for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, shipping soon at a very attractive $349, with a nice serving of the latest version of Android (Jelly Bean).

Point #3: Samsung is expected to sidestep the Galaxy Nexus injunction with a software update, possibly in a matter of days, rendering the ruling nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Meanwhile, the lawyers are laughing all the way to the bank.

I still really don't get how someone was ever able to patent software functionality in the first place, you can't even patent hardware functionality, only a specific arrangement of parts, or a process that enables functionality.

I'd have thought if anything the only way to translate our patent model to software would have been to patent the source code not the result.

Meanwhile on this side of the pond Apple lose a similar casehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18709232
I saw that last night, ever wondered why Apple don't file for sale and import bans in the UK? It's because our patent system, although flawed, works a hell of a lot better than the system the US (and it seems Germany) use.

Either that or our judges aren't morons who bow down to Apple's every wish...*cough Germany and America *cough*.

If Apple weren't American or if more of their competitors were I think their courts wouldn't waste so much time with these cases.
If Google could take ownership of the Nexus range in same way that Apple does their third party made hardware so that court cases were more directly against them wonder if it would alter things.